Rappahannock River

The Rappahannock River is a 195-mile-long river in eastern Virginia. Its name means "where the tide ebbs and flows" in Algonquian, and Governor Alexander Spotswood urged settlement along the river at the start of the 1700s. Beginning in 1714, he began encouraging immigration from the Rhineland, the Palatinate, and Switzerland to settle the area. During the American Civil War, the Battle of Fredericksburg was fought along the river, during which 10,000 African-American slaves escaped to freedom.